Rose timidly pushed on the door of the classroom, hoping that no one else was inside. She couldn't believe that teachers still left these old rooms unlocked, but it was lucky for her because they were usually the least visited place in the school. As long as there were no couples occupying them. Today was her lucky day, it appeared. The tiny classroom was empty and just as dusty as she had left it. She shut the door behind her as quietly as she could, then hurried over to the table that had probably been the professors back in the day and dropped her bag on it.

Marlene moved quietly through the halls, also looking for somewhere nice and quiet. True, the Ravenclaw common room was usually quiet enough to be respectful of people trying to study, but there were just so many bloody people there and sometimes Marlene liked to be... not specifically alone, just, not in such a crowd. She didn't hesitate when she pushed the door to the old classroom open, figuring that if any couples inside hadn't been bright enough to lock the door then that was their problem. Her eyes scanned the room as she stepped forwards, almost weary out of habit, and she paused when she spotted her dorm-mate at the old Professor's desk. "Hey," she said, leaning against the doorframe. She didn't know if Rose wanted company, she'd easily find somewhere else if not. "Mind if I join, or were you looking to be alone?"

Rose jumped slightly when Marlene pushed the door open. Composed herself quickly, she stepped to stand in front of her bag. "No," she said, pulling on a strand of her hair in an innocent manner, "I don't mind." Since Rose didn't have any classes with Marlene and spent the majority of her time tucked away in some area of the castle studying it felt like she never saw her dorm-mate. Then again, she was starting to feel like that with just about everyone. "What brings you here?" She asked nonchalantly. She had been under the impression that she was the only one who visited the castles many unused classrooms during the daytime. Maybe Marlene had the same idea that she had.

Marlene's lips twitched, her dark eyes lit up with a flash of curiosity as she watched Rose step in front of her bag and play innocent. "What brings you here?" she shot back, planting one foot on one of the seats and swinging herself up to sit on a desk near the front. With a quick smile, she dropped her bag on the table next to her. "Just didn't want to hang out in the common room or whatever, so I figured I'd go find somewhere else to be. Guess you must be living here now or something, since I never see you in the dorm," she deadpanned.

Catching the glint in Marlene's eyes, Rose accepted that she probably wouldn't be able to hide what she was doing from the other girl. Marlene was, in Rose's opinion, the queen of secrets. "Same thing. I 'spose." She answered, "Just looking for somewhere quiet to study. Between studying, Quidditch, and classes, I feel like I barely have time to shower or sleep anymore." She admitted with a quick smile, "And the library isn't really equipped for the type of studying I need to do." She turned around to peer inside her bad, "I was having a lot of trouble with my Confundus Charm. None of my friends would let me practice on them, for some reason." She gave an eye roll that Marlene couldn't see as she pulled a small box out of her bag, "So I went to the Room of Requirement. You know there's a family of Doxies that live there? I can practice Charms and aim at the same time." She spun around to look at Marlene and hurried to add, "It doesn't hurt them or anything! They're bad at landings sometimes, but Doxies are made out of hard stuff. They're always fine."

"Showering is important," Marlene lectured with a little smirk, leaning forwards and resting her elbows on her knees in curiosity as Rose turned to ferret through her bag for something. Her eyebrows rose a little all throughout the other girl's confession and her hurried justification that the Doxies wouldn't be hurt by the Confundus target practice. "Creative. I like it. And hey, I never met a Doxy who didn't have it coming anyway, so whatever. Aim is important, anyway - not like most living things just stand still and let you do whatever you want to them. Well, the dumbass ones, maybe." She paused a moment. Her fingers twitched, habit compelled her to reach for a cigarette but she pushed back the urge and grinned at Rose. "I'm alright at Confundus - not an expert or anything, but I've got a few good tricks of aiming if you want a hand?"

Rose let out a sigh of relief when Marlene didn't seem to be opposed to what Rose was doing. It looked like she had told the right person. Her mom, Rose knew, would be furious at the idea of something like this. She nodded along as Marlene talked, her face breaking into a smile when she was offered help. "That would actually be horrible. I'm actually really bad a dueling," She admitted, "And aim has a lot to do with that. The Confundus Charm is probably one of my worse, too." There had been plenty of time for Rose to accept that she wasn't a very good dueler, but the fact that she couldn't pull off a charm really got to her. Rose Weasley could do charms beyond her year and had mastered nearly every spell in the sixth year curriculum, but Confundus continued to escape her. It frustrated her to no end. "Ready?" She asked as she turned towards the box. It was now emitting tiny frustrated noises and lurching on the table, the Doxies must have been hitting it from the inside. "There's only three of them, so it shouldn't be a problem. You know how their venom is, though."

Marlene was probably the right person to tell. She knew the difference between right and wrong, but she also got that sometimes there's collateral damage no matter what you do, and you just had to deal with it and do the best you could to make sure it's minimal. A couple of potential injuries from bad landings to creatures that could poison them with their venom anyway just didn't rate on Marlene's scale. For a moment she wondered if she should be worried about that, but she brushed the thought off quickly."Surprising," she commented, getting to her feet and readying her wand. "Didn't expect there to be a charm you couldn't do in your sleep. Hey, hang on a sec, let me get something."She reached into her bag and rifled through her potions ingredients. A small canister of fire seeds was all she had left, but she pulled it out and sat it on the table. "In case one of the little buggers gets us - not going to do much like the actual potion would, but it'll slow the venom long enough for the other one to get a message out for help. Try not to need it, yeah? It's all I've got til I can get out for more and I hate to borrow anything from Slughorn, he's such a dick about it." Finally, she nodded her ready. Her wand was poised, Marlene was ready to watch Rose and help her out with her wandwork, but also to play backup in case it all turned to shit.

[Sorry this took me a week, exams snuck up on me. Chrome is telling me that 'snuck' isn't a word, but I can't think of an appropriate substitute...]

Rose gave a slight smile at the compliment. Or was it? She was never quite sure of what her classmates thought of her grades and couldn't always interpret their comments. Instead of obsessing about it she cast the thought away; she enjoyed learning, there was nothing she could do about the thoughts of others. "Great idea." She said, nodding at the little canister Marlene had placed on the table. "I didn't have time to make the actual potion and there's just something wrong with stealing from the Hospital Wing." As soon as she saw Marlene nod, Rose opened the box. The Doxies shot out and flew around the room, looking around angrily for the person that had trapped them. One of them chose her as a target and dove towards her. Rose ducked, spun around, and pointed her wand up at the Doxy. "Confundo," She attempted weakly, a few feeble sparks shooting out the end of it. Another one of the Doxies dove at her and she ducked again, protecting her head with her hands. "It only seems to make them angrier!" She complained loudly, "And when they get angry they get persistent."

[XD No worries. Also, it drives me mad when spellcheckers try to tell you words are wrong when they aren't! Snuck is TOTALLY a word!]

That was definitely a compliment. Well, as close to compliments are Marlene really gets. She nodded absently in agreement. "Yeah, I guess if you filched some and then Pomfrey didn't have supplies when she really needed it, it could be a huge mess."Marlene's eyes darted constantly around the room, trying to keep track of all three Doxies at once. Two of them had zeroed in on Rose, one after the other, and one went for Marlene. She trained her wand on the Doxy bearing down on her, steady-handed and calm. "Depulso," she cried, banishing it to the far side of the room to buy herself and Rose some time without taking out Rose's target practice. "Nice dodging," she called to Rose, observing the way her fellow Ravenclaw moved and spun her body rather than just standing still and waiting for the attack. She sent a much weaker Banishing charm at the two Doxies bombarding Rose, pushing them back just a few feet to stop them from biting her. "Cast it like you mean it! Scream it if you have to!"

Rose, too preoccupied with the two Doxies after her to notice what Marlene was doing, suddenly found the Doxies pushed back and away from her. She didn't know where the third one was, but decided that wasn't really important at the moment. She sent a silent thanks to Merlin that her dormmate had shown up - otherwise choosing to catch three of the little buggers would have been overkill. Hearing Marlene's advice she spun around to face the Doxy closest to her, imagining as she did that she had just caught a Quaffle and was spinning around to shoot. Holding her wand out in front of her she tried again, this time speaking more firmly. The result was the Doxy blinking slightly, the zooming off in the other direction. Rose counted that as a win.

Marlene laughed in triumph as Rose started to get the hang of it, her spell noticeably stronger than her first attempt. "Alright!" she praised, and backed off a few paces. She kept her wand readied and all three Doxies in her sights, but she would hold back a little bit now and allow Rose to practice more fully. "With your aim, try to get 'em where they're going - shoot for where they're going to be and not where they already are. Like you do with passing a quaffle or whatever," she added after a beat, as the Doxies regathered themselves and turned to renew their attack.

Rose gave a confident nod, taking the Quidditch reference seriously. Quidditch she knew. She could relate dueling to Quidditch. Imagining that the Doxy was a teammate that she had to pass to, she threw her best attempt at it. The charm did nothing. Feeling frustrated, she aimed at it again - this time hitting it square in the chest with a stunning spell. The Doxy flew backwards and hit the wall with a small thud. Rose turned around to face Marlene, an annoyed look on her face. "I either miss or cast a bad spell. I just can't catch a break! This charm is important, too, do you know how many stories my parents have told of them needing it?"

Despite the seriousness of the issue, Marlene chuckled. "Well, you've got stunning down, so that's something at least." She raised her wand higher as cover when Rose turned to face her, taking her eyes off one of the Doxies still in the air. Although she kept her eyes squarely trained on the threats the entire time, Marlene listened to Rose's words carefully. Finally, she let out a little huff of understanding as something occurred to her. The Doxy made a play for them, and in a voice that was almost exasperated, as if she couldn't quite believe the stupid creature had the audacity to even try it, Marlene flicked an Impedimenta at it to slow it down. She took advantage of the moment of peace, her eyes flicking to look at Rose for a moment before returning to perpetual vigilance, and furrowed her brow slightly. "Alright, be honest - are you freaking out over this because of your parents? Like because they drilled it into you that it helped them so much you think if you can't master it you're screwed or whatever? Because that's the kind of stuff that messes with your mind and gets in the way of being able to do it, they reckon," she offered, whoever 'they' were...

Dean had asked Angela to meet him in the empty classroom, wanting to spend time with his girlfriend. The word made him smile as he peeked his head inside, making sure the room was empty. Once he stepped inside he got to work setting the perfect atmosphere for a nice date. He took his wand out, charming the windows so it looked like the sun was setting, then conjured up a a blanket and picnic basket to set in the middle of the room. Sure, they could have had an actual picnic outside, but since it was getting nicer out, there were a lot more people and he just wanted some alone time with his girl. Once he had everything all set up, he stretched himself out on the blanket to wait for Ange, pulling out his sketch pad to help pass the time.

Ange walked down the hallway with a smile on her face. The past few months with Dean had actually been pretty great, and she was so incredibly happy that their friendship had turned into this great relationship. As she peered into the classroom, she smiled a little wider when she saw what Dean had set up for the two of them, and saw him sitting with his sketchpad. She crept in quietly, behind her boyfriend and covered his eyes. "Guess who?" she whispered playfully in his right ear, giving him a swift kiss on the cheek.

Dean heard Ange come in the room, but pretended he didn't as a huge smiled crept onto his face. Once her hands were over his eyes, he made a questioning humming noise. "Is it...Seamus? Gotta say, I didn't know I was your type mate." He chuckled and raised a hand to pull Ange's away from his eyes. He turned and smiled at her, "Hey Angypie," then pressed a quick kiss to her lips then pulled back, still smiling.

Ange grinned and swatted at him playfully, giggling. "You think you're so cute, don't you? I would hope I kiss better than Seamus," she giggled and sat down across from him and pushed a stray piece of hair behind her ear. "So what's up boyfriend?" she grinned at him, loving the way that sounded directed at Dean.

Dean smiled and closed his sketchpad. "I do think I'm cute and I was under the impression you thought so too." He smirked at her and turned on his side so he could look at her better. "Nothing, girlfriend. Waiting for you. How was your day?" He reached out and grabbed her hand, intertwining their fingers then raising them to press a kiss to her knuckle.

She smiled, not letting go of his hand, "my day was alright, better now that I get to see you. I mostly just worked on homework, an essay for Sprout and practiced a few charms for Flitwick's class," she crinkled her nose in disgust. "Too much time studying, I hate that finals are coming up so quickly!"

Dean let out a little huff of laughter. "I know what you mean. I feel like my head is going to explode from all the NEWT studying. That's why I wanted to have a little time to ourselves when we didn't have to worry about school or anything. I made some little sandwiches if you're hungry." He gestured to the basket sitting near them. "The house elves were really nice and packed some desserts in for us too. Nice little guys."

Ange grinned and kissed Dean quickly on the lips, "I love this. It's perfect. Delicious food and my wonderful boyfriend." She took a seat opposite of Dean and picked up a sandwich, taking a bite. "Yumm. My boyfriend really knows how to make food!" she giggled

Dean smiled after Ange kissed him. He grabbed a sandwich from the basket and took a small bite. "Well, I may have had some help from the house elves. They just instructed me, I did all the work. But I'm glad my girlfriend likes it." He smiled again then stretched out on the blanket, propping himself up on his elbow while he nibbled his sandwich.

"She does indeed. You better be careful or I might have you make food all the time," she winked at him, laughing lightly. She finished the little sandwich and sighed, watching her boyfriend and trying not to think about how they only had a short time left before he would graduate and leave her. A small, sad smile crossed her face at the thought, and she ran a hand absently through her hair.